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Updated: June 29, 2025
In fact, the Doctor was very busy; and, as his practice grew, the dower of the Paronsina dwindled in his fancy, till one day he treated the whole question of their marriage with such coldness and uncertainty in his talk with Tonelli, that the latter saw whither his thoughts were drifting, and went home with an indignant heart to the Paronsina, who joyfully sat down and wrote her first sincere letter to the Doctor, dismissing him.
After the affair with the Doctor, I say, life refused to return exactly to its old expression, and I suppose that, if what presently happened was ever to happen, it could not have occurred at a more appropriate time for a disaster, or at a time when its victims were less able to bear it I do not know whether I have yet sufficiently indicated the fact, but the truth is both the Paronsina and her mother had from long use come to regard Tonelli as a kind of property of theirs, which had no right in any way to alienate itself.
The poor Doctor would try, but it must always end in Tonelli's suggesting and almost dictating every sentence; and then the letter, being carried to the Paronsina made her laugh: "This is very pretty, my poor Tonelli, but it was never my onoratissimo dottore who thought of these tender compliments. Ah! that allusion to my mouth and eyes could only have come from the heart of a great poet.
On both sides evil was stored up. When Tonelli would still make a show of fidelity to the Paronsina and her mother, they accepted his awkward advances, the latter with a cold visage, the former with a sarcastic face and tongue.
The signora was weary of the promenade long before the Austrian music ceased in the Piazza, and was very glad when it came time for them to leave the Molo, and go and sit down to an ice at the Caffè Florian. This was the supreme hour to the Paronsina, the one heavenly excess of her restrained and eventless life.
They would have felt an attempt of this sort to be not only very absurd, but very wicked, in view of their affection for him and dependence upon him; and while the Paronsina thanked God that he would never marry, she had a deep conviction that he ought not to marry, even if he desired.
The exceptions to her custom were formed by those after-dinner promenades which she sometimes made on holidays, in summer. Then she put on her richest black, and the Paronsina dressed herself in her best, and they both went to walk on the Molo, before the pillars of the lion and the saint, under the escort of Tonelli.
It was a fit abode for such a man as the notary, exiled in the heart of his native city, and it was not unfriendly in its influences to a quiet vegetation like the signora's; but to the Paronsina it was sad as Venice itself, where, in some moods, I have wondered that any sort of youth could have the courage to exist.
It is yours, Tonelli, don't deny it." And Tonelli, taken in his weak point of literature, could make but a feeble pretence of disclaiming the child of his fancy, while the Paronsina, being in this reckless humor, more than once responded to the Doctor in such fashion that in the end the inspiration of her altered and amended letter was Tonelli's.
In fact, it was altogether a business affair, and was managed chiefly by Tonelli, who having met a young doctor, laurelled the year before at Padua, had heard him express so pungent a curiosity to know what the Paronsina would have to her dower, that he perceived he must be madly in love with her.
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